


Letters to Dad and Back

by Dorkangel



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Letters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternative Perspectives, Background Cherik, Bullying, But so is Remy, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Charles is a Teacher, Erik is a Father, Erik is an Engineer, Erik killed a man once, Gen, I swear to god I will fill the rest of these tags in later, Is dodgier a word?, Letters, M/M, Pietro is a Kleptomaniac, Pietro's canon dodgy relationship with his father got even dodgier!, Poor Erik, Remy and Pietro are total bros, backstories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 19:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2281107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik finally tracked down and killed the man who ruined his life! Yay!<br/>Unfortunately, this also meant ten years in a cell and being totally and utterly forbidden to visit his son. EVER. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.</p><p>But, after ten years, Erik is kind of ok with his life. He has a new boyfriend, a new job, and - with Schmidt dead - he's left all of that behind.<br/>Until Peter writes him a letter, that is, and Erik finds that not all bridges are so easily burnt.</p><p> </p><p>EDIT: 05.23.2016: This work has been abandoned. Sorry. If anyone is interesting in continuing it, please contact me: if not, it will eventually be deleted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Letters to Dad and Back

It wasn't that Charles didn't know about Peter. It was just that he had been nothing more than a vague, sorrowful mention of Erik's past - the young son he wasn't allowed to visit.  
Not that he would still be young. Erik had been in prison for ten years, and Peter had only been two when he was arrested.  
And he and Charles had been together for a year afterwards.

How they got together was pretty weird, actually. Charles was a professor of genetics and Erik was an ex-convicted murderer, and so naturally they'd met in the hospital, sitting next to each other on a bench. Erik, terminally bored but kind of cheerful, seeing as how he was about to be released, glanced at Charles.  
"Hello."  
His voice was bright, if slightly low and rough, and Charles started a little, looking back and smiling a hesitant greeting. "Um, hi. I'm Charles."  
He held out a hand and Erik grimaced lopsidedly, lifting his hands for Charles to see. "Sorry, handcuffs. It's a little hard to shake."  
Blinking, Charles snapped himself out of his small sense of shock - Erik was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and in no way looked as though he had just been in prison - and dropped his hand.  
"Ah, sorry, I didn't notice-"  
"Quite alright. They're a little hidden." His words were laden with such uncharacteristic cheerfulness that Charles would later wonder if he had actually met Erik's doppelgänger. "So," continued the taller man. "What have they got you in for?"  
Charles very nearly said 'um... nothing?' but luckily Erik clarified. "In the hospital, I mean."  
"Oh." Charles flushed, hoping Erik hadn't realised the misunderstanding. "Physio. I'm waiting for them to bring my wheelchair back; they always seem to put it in the most inconvenient place possible. You?"  
"Just checking I haven't picked up any diseases in prison."  
At Charles's startled blink, Erik's smile faded a bit. "I'm not going to attack you or anything, by the way. Besides, I'm getting released tomorrow, so they trust I'm not stupid enough to run off."  
"Oh, right. Sorry. What were you in prison for, if you don't mind me aski-"  
"Attempted homicide and manslaughter and assault."  
Charles tried to stop his jaw from dropping open.  
"That was just one guy, though," Erik hurried to explain. "And he deserved it. He was a Nazi."  
He didn't know what it was about Charles that made him so eager to justify his actions. Charles didn't know what it was about Erik that made him believe him.  
"F-Fair enough." Charles could see Doctor McCoy coming down the corridor with his chair and sudden dumb instinct seized him. "This is going to sound incredibly irrational," he said, his English accent becoming more pronounced. "But would it be stupid of me to ask if you have a phone number? Or if I could give you mine?"  
Erik stared at him for a moment, then beamed.

That was more than a year ago, and they were still together. Erik had a job that basically involved intimidating construction workers into submission and Charles had a job teaching young people the beauty of genes and their abnormalities, and they were happy.  
Thing was, Erik already had a family. A wife - ex-wife, now - Magda, and a baby, and he had been a sculptor before...

*

He had killed Schmidt for a reason. Like he had told Charles, the guy had it coming, but it was more than that. That man had ruined his childhood, essentially killing his mother with his false cancer treatments and leaving Erik orphaned and penniless.  
The idea of killing him had become Erik's childhood obsession, keeping him going through poverty and bullying and other horrible things, until he'd finally sorted himself out and met Magda and had Peter.  
Until sixteen years after his mother had died, however, when he was driving to work and got stuck in a a traffic jam, happened to look at the driver in the car next to him, and recognised him. Recognised Schmidt.

And, well, from there, everything had gone downhill and the next thing Erik knew he was attempting to push the guy off a bridge, each of them yelling in furious German. He had let go, shocked at himself, and then Schmidt had tried to hit him and lunged too far and fallen and hit the ground a hundred feet below.

*

Charles actually loved his job. Mostly it was the joy of teaching and all that, but at least in part it was all the days off, which he usually made good use of by sleeping all day.

That morning, the alarm went off in all of its usual screaming fashion - Charles had been all for getting a voice recording of Erik's boss, Moira, yelling at him, but for some reason the concept had disturbed his boyfriend - and Erik groaned, throwing a pillow at it with what was almost definitely unnecessary amounts of violence. Charles just smiled sleepily and burrowed his face into the remaining pillow.

"What has that poor clock ever done to you?" he murmured, and felt Erik flop back down on the mattress next to him. "Well, for a start, it drags me away from you at six thirty every morning-" Charles adopted Erik's technique and whacked at him with the pillow.

"What have I ever done to you?" Erik joked, and Charles fixed him with the evil eye. "You're being overly adorable, which is making me feel almost _guilty_ over this rather enjoyable day of procrastinating and snoozing and doing nothing."

"I'd hate to send you on a guilt trip, dear." Erik sighed, pulling himself out of bed, and Charles could practically feel his boyfriend's patronizing stare, see the stance: hands on hips, head slightly to one side. "Nothing I say is going to make you get up, is it?"

Charles repressed a triumphant grin.

"Nope."

"Didn't think so."

Erik bent down and pressed a light kiss to Charles's temple, then wandered off in search of clothes and breakfast. After a few minutes, Charles heard a "See you later!", the sound of their apartment door closing, and then silence.

And then, just, _just_ , at precisely the moment in which he was falling back to sleep, came the buzzer that meant their mail had arrived. Charles swore into the sheets and then got to his feet, brushing his wavy hair out of his blue eyes and rubbing the sleep from them. Their bedroom, unfortunately, was only a couple of meters away from the door, and Charles had already turned the handle when a thought came into his head.

 _What am I missing?_ asked his brain.

 _No idea._ supplied his waking mind. _It's too early for me to be working._

 _Thanks a billion,_ answered his brain. _Honestly, I don't know why I... PANTS!_

Silently thanking the fact that he and his brain did occasionally communicate, Charles rushed back inside, pulled on a pair of jeans and a dressing gown, and jogged downstairs to get his mail.

 

The name on the envelope was 'Erik Lehnsherr', but that didn't really matter. Erik had been the first to read the letter, sent by Charles's family solicitors, saying 'I regret to inform you that your stepfather has died', and he had held Charles's hand through all that rubbish. Whatever this was, Charles reasoned, it couldn't be worse than that.

He was wrong.

 

Still tired, Charles sat down at the kitchen table to read it.

*

_~~Dear~~ ~~my dad~~ _

_~~Dear Mr. Lehnsherr~~ _

_To Erik Lehnsherr,_

_~~Hi~~ _

_Hello._

_~~I'm not sure why I'm writing this~~ _

_~~I was bored and lonely so~~ _

_I'm not supposed to be doing this. EVER. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. I saw you on the news a year and a bit ago, though ~~and I look a little like you~~ and it made me even more curious than I already was, and mom kinda refuses to talk about you. I don't know how you two met, or when you got married, or when I was born in relation to that, or if you were actually a good dad before you killed that guy ~~so~~_

_I'm Peter. Peter Maximoff._

 

Charles's heart jolted. Of course, it was inevitable that one day Erik's son would surface, but Erik had only ever mentioned him as a two year old with a scruff of white baby-hair and a huge smile. He'd always spoken fondly, but the memories were distant by now and overshadowed by the bitter knowledge that there was a court order preventing him from ever EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES talking, meeting, calling or being in any other form of contact with Pietro Maximoff. Erik's ex-wife, Magda, hadn't wanted their son brought up by a murderer.

He read on.

 

_This is probably illegal, and on one hand I'm sorry and on the other, I don't really care. I want to know about you._

_I know you're not allowed to ask either, so I might as well tell you about me. It doesn't really matter: chances are I'll chicken out and never post this._

_I'm thirteen years old. I have silver hair, the result of a genetic mutation, which was annoyingly weird when I was younger but cool now because everyone assumes I dye it. I'm tall and broad-shouldered, and my face looks nothing like mom's, so I'm assuming the square jaw and grey eyes are yours. ~~She's either hidden the photos or burnt them.~~_ _I'm not too good at school. I have ADHD and also it's just boring so ~~sometimes I just try and steal people's pens without them noticing for hours . I don't know why I'm telling you this.~~ I'm good at athletics, however, and I'm on all the school teams. ~~It's the only reason I haven't been kicked out.~~_

_Mom married this jerk guy two years after you punched that guy in the face and pushed him off a bridge (saw it on the news when you got released), but they split up again when he found out she was pregnant. ~~If you're planning any more murders, start with him.~~ She had another baby with some other guy four years after that, so I've got two sisters. There's Wanda (11) and Lorna (7) and it's kind of weird that mom gave them both European names but changed mine from Pietro to Peter a couple of years ago, but whatever. They're annoying, but fine._

_Mom's alright. She doesn't freak out ~~much~~ but she's quite strict. ~~I don't know if she misses you or hates you or what, she never talks about you.~~ If we've got other family, we don't talk to them ~~and wouldn't it just be super weird if I had like a million cousins on your side or a German grandma or something, you're German, right?~~_

_There's nothing else too spectacular about me. I like comics, like the Avengers and stuff, I guess, and Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd is cool._

 

It didn't really sound like overconfidence was Peter's style, thought Charles. Although, he'd have to have a hell of a lot of guts to post this... What was he doing?! He couldn't judge this kid. For a start, the letter wasn't meant for him, and secondly, Peter was Erik's son, not his.

After that, the tone changed.

 

_Who are you? I seriously know nothing about you. What colour is your hair? Have you been out with anyone else? What sports teams do you like? How tall are you? What job do you do? What stuff do you like doing?_

_I didn't want to do this, but mom won't negotiate and I can't wait until I'm eighteen._

_From Pietro Edie Maximoff_

_P.S. I've put my address on the back_

_P.P.S Is there any particular reason I have a girl's middle name?_

 


	2. Chapter 2

Letters to Dad and Back  
Chapter 2

It had been two weeks since Peter sent the letter and, honestly, he had kind of forgotten about it.  
It wasn't that he didn't care, only that he had lived eleven years without Erik and didn't quite expect his father to make any kind of contact. It was, after all, against the law.

His alarm went off at the same time it did every day, - weekday, weekend, holiday, birthday, Christmas - at quarter to six in the morning, and he rolled out of his bed with practised ease, not even opening his eyes until he had stood up.  
Gazing blearily at the Pink Floyd poster on the wall opposite him, Peter ran a hand through his hair and wondered what he was supposed to be doing, and then... Oh yeah. Food.  
He tip-toed downstairs, barely paying any attention to what he was doing - left, right, left, skip a step because it creaks and you don't want to wake Lorna up - and tripped over to the kitchen, opening the fridge door and slugging milk straight from bottle. The sound of the letterbox opening disturbed him and, still trying to wake up, he stumbled over to it and picked up the post.

  
 _Bill, bank letter to Magda Maximoff, Wanda's pen pal..._  
'Pietro Edie Maximoff'.

  
He frowned. Jesus, middle name. What could be so important to warrant that?  
He flipped over the letter, curious, and read the sender's address on the back.  
"Holy shit!"

 

"Mom!" he yelled, up the stairs, trying to stop the hand that held the letter from shaking. There was no reply, but he had a feeling he had woken both his mother and his sisters up. "I'm jogging!"  
Peter's version of 'jogging' was everyone else's version of 'running at immensely fast speeds in any old direction', but he did it nearly every morning anyway and no one usually bothered him over it. The entire block was used seeing him in a t-shirt and sweatpants at six o'clock in the morning (if they were even awake).  
He was holding the letter so tightly that he was crumpling it up, he realised, and simply kept running until he was just around the corner from his friend Remy's place.

It was Remy's idea to write the letter in the first place. Obviously, Peter had always wanted to, but on his own initiative he'd never have just done it.

*

The two boys had met in second grade, Remy's extensive and eccentric family having just moved to D.C. from New Orleans (Six years later, Remy still spoke with a strong Cajun accent, and at seven years old he was barely understandable). They had kind of naturally gravitated together; both having names the other kids thought of as 'weird', - Peter still called himself Pietro when he was seven - odd appearances, and possible kleptomania, although, in second grade, that word didn't quite feature in their vocabularies. As Remy, innocently blinking his curious red-on-black eyes had put it 'We both like nickin' stuff, oui?'.  
Actually, the first thing Peter had ever heard from Remy was 'Who's dat kid? His hair is so COOL!' but that is a whole other story.

 

This particular morning, seven year old Remy had rushed in and plonked himself down on the chair opposite Peter with particular enthusiasm, pulling a bunch of already opened letters from his pocket and rifling through them delightedly.  
Peter, not content to be ignored, had pouted slightly. "What's that?" he asked, curious despite himself, and Remy had looked up and grinned.  
"Is my pere's _anniversaire_."  
"Huh?"  
"My daddy. It's his birthday."  
"...oh."  
"So all my family- um, you can't tell no one, 'k?"  
"I won't tell." Peter's words were eager already, because Remy knew the BEST secrets.  
"Well, dey all in jail fo' stealin' stuff, and dey wrote to us cos it's his birthday, so I get to read all the stuff dey sent."  
"Wait, they stole stuff like-"  
"Not like us! Big stuff, homme."

(By third grade, Remy and Peter would have set up a mini criminal empire, stealing people's stationary and ransoming them back. Mechanical pencils were the most expensive, costing a twinkie if they were unbroken and half a twinkie if Peter had managed to accidentally snap the lead.)

  
"Oh."  
"Or dey cheat at cards an' things. Fraud."  
"Cards? Like Uno?"  
Remy laughed. "Non, poker!"  
Peter didn't really understand, but he shrugged. And then suddenly realised that he had something to tell his friend too.  
"I know yours is a secret," he whispered in what passed, at that age, for subtle. "But mine is a REALLY big secret. You've got to pinky-promise you won't tell anyone ever?"  
Remy had nodded conspiratorially and obediently linked pinkies.  
"My dad's in prison too." Peter had whispered. At the time, he would only have been able to describe his feelings as 'I dunno, kinda tingly', but now that he was older he understood that it was the sensation of being able to do the one thing that, above all else, he was not allowed to do.  
"He doesn't write to me, though. And he didn't just steal some pencils or cheat at UNO."  
"What did he do?" whispered Remy, remembering the too-violent action movies that his older brothers and slightly irresponsible cousins had mistakenly allowed him to watch.  
"He killed someone." replied Peter, in the same overly dramatic, hushed tone.  
"How?!" It was a demand for information, more than anything, but Peter was all too happy to comply.  
"He pushed them off a bridge."  
"Pushed them off a bridge?!" cried Remy, ecstatic (he'd heard of people being shot, stabbed and blown up before, but falling from great heights was new on him).  
"Pushed who off a bridge?" teased the teacher as she walked in, having heard Remy's shout. The two little boys exchanged a secretive glance.  
"No one, mademoiselle." answered Remy politely. "You seen 'Transformers'?"  
She smiled patronisingly at them. "Call me 'Miss', Remy. And no, I haven't seen Transformers."  
"It was on Transformers." said Peter quickly. "A really fast car turned into an angry German dude and pushed some guy off a bridge."

Naturally, Remy had suggested that they write a letter to Peter's dad, but they had had no idea what to write or who to send it to, so they never did. And after that they were old enough to understand why Erik was forbidden to write.  
But then they reached their teens, and were old enough to understand why they shouldn't and still do it. They just hadn't really considered what they would do if Erik wrote back.

*

Peter bounced on the balls of his feet for a moment, unsure of what to do, and then pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Remy's mobile.  
After a few rings, he was answered with a soft groan and some muttering, which he presumed to either mean 'Who are you?' or 'What do you want?'.  
"It's me." he said quickly.  
"I know it's you," came the irritable, but coherent, answer. "I was just wondering why you was callin' me at six in de morning."  
"He wrote back."  
There was a hesitation and some muffled swearing, and then Remy put the phone back to his face again. "What in hell are you talkin' about, Maximoff?"  
"Erik - my dad - he wrote back."  
The hesitant this time was only for a millisecond, and the 'Merde!' was audible.  
"You serious? Where are you, man? I'm comin' over-"  
"Look out of your window."  
Peter took a few steps forward and, sure enough, the curtains on the top window of one of the residential houses swished open, revealing a topless, barely conscious Remy, his usually sleek cinnamon hair rumpled and sticking up in all directions.  
The boy's eyes widened, he stuck his middle finger up at the apologetically grimacing Peter, and then disappeared, presumably to collapse onto his bed again.  
"You can't come 'ere! Firstly, my parents will kill me, and secondly, my step-cousin Marie is stayin' over an' I'm tryin' to get her to-"  
A faint voice sounded in French behind Remy, who shoved the phone down into the mattress and answered, "No one, papa!"  
There was more questioning, and then "No, papa. It's only Peter, he is havin' a crisis of conscience and I am offering moral support."  
Remy's dad laughed and the teenager let off a stream of French expletives in a higher voice than he would have liked to think. "What?! I 'ave a perfectly sound moral compass, merci-" Remy's dad said something again.

"Well if I don' it's your fault!"  
He picked up the phone again. "Sorry 'bout dat, but if you call at dis time you got to deal with all de shit dat happens dis early."  
Peter smiled. "Your accent gets stronger when you talk to Jean-Luc, you know."  
"Piss off, my accent gets stronger when you wake me up too early, plus I was up 'til midnight tryin' to seduce Marie. But holy shit! Your pere wrote back! What'd he say?"  
"I don't know." Peter looked down at the letter, perfectly deadly with its plain white envelope and neat print. "I haven't opened it yet."  
Remy laughed incredulously. "You adorable lil' shit. You jus' called me without..."  
He stopped talking and Peter felt the need to fill it in. "You do realise that you've used the word 'shit' like three times in the last minute, right?"  
"No, no, it's not a girl or anything. Say bonjour in a manly voice, Pietro."  
He frowned. "Uh, hi."  
A girl's voice giggled on the other end, and then Remy hissed into the receiver, "You woke up my beautiful cousin, man."  
"You're disgusting." said Peter sarcastically.  
" _Step_ -cousin, and she is a _belle femme_ , I swear. I would introduce you to her, but the ladies kinda like your hair an' I want to make out with her without you being involved."  
Remy sighed. "I'm exhausted, though. Read the letter, den talk to me at school."  
Peter nodded, anxious, hung up, stepped back around the corner, then stared down at the hideously ominous piece of paper in his hands.

_Pietro,_

It began simply.

_You are completely correct in saying that this it totally against the law. I really shouldn't be doing this (and neither should you), but, well, you started it._

_I've missed you. A lot._

Something deep in Peter's chest twinged. It maybe stung a little that he had never known Erik, but Erik had at least known baby-him.

_I am thirty four years old. I have short, gingerish hair and a smile that has been called 'disturbing' with alarming frequency. I do have grey eyes and I do have a square jaw, and, like you, I am tall and broad-shouldered. ~~What an odd way this is of having to introduce myself to my own son.~~_

_I'm an engineer, and work on a construction site, ~~bullying workers into obeying my every command.~~ My boss is a lovely woman, but a nightmare to work for. At school I was never good at athletics, like you, but I came top for swimming and languages. In fairness, I was brought up with a mixture of European languages as well as English._

_I did know about Wanda, vaguely, as your mother was still at the writing to me stage when she was born. Lorna, however, is a new development to me. Thank you for telling me about her. I have no siblings (so you don't have to worry about any crazy extended families), but my boyfriend Charles has a little sister and he tells me that they are_ nightmares _. I hope she's not too annoying._

Hold up. Stop everything. Did he just read that correctly? BOYFRIEND?!

_Charles and me live together. He is a science teacher at our local high school, although honestly he's a professor and a little overqualified for that, and writes immensely complicated papers on genetics in his spare time. He was fascinated to learn that you had a mutation, and proceeded to try and do blood tests on me for the best part of a week. We met in a hospital just as I was being let out of prison, and have kind of been together ever since._

Disgustingly adorable, thought Peter. Also, his dad was gay? Or bi? That was new.

After that, the letter turned darker.

_I don't know how much of this your mother will have explained to you, but I have a feeling that it won't have been much. I'm sorry for having to tell you all this, but I really do have to explain._

_My parents were German Jews who moved to America shortly before I was born. My father died when I was very young, and I don't remember him very well, but my mother was a wonderful, loving woman who looked after me the best she could on her own, in a not-particularly-very-nice part of New York (at the time)._

_Then, when I was twelve, she was diagnosed with cancer. At first she tried to ignore it, wearing a headscarf to cover the fact that chemotherapy was making her hair fall out, and blaming her exhaustion on simply not sleeping enough, but then it got worse, badly, and she was taken into hospital. The doctors said she was dying and there was nothing they could do._

_Except one. Klaus Schmidt claimed to be developing a revolutionary cancer treatment that could save my mother, explaining little snippets of pseudoscience to us, filled with jargon so we wouldn't understand that he was talking absolute ~~bullshit~~ nonsense. He used our bank details to steal all of our money and then disappeared, leaving us barely able to afford the hospital bed she was dying in._

_I killed him for a reason, Peter._

Peter felt nauseous. His mom had raised him and Wanda and Lorna alone, and the thought of losing her like that was too much to bear.

_I met your mother shortly after that. She had just transferred to my school, having only moved to America a few weeks earlier, and I spoke Polish, so we ended up paired together quite often._

_One thing led to another, and we were married when we were twenty one, having been together for five years. You were born, and then two years later I killed Schmidt._

_There isn't really anything else to tell you. I'd like to think that if I had never seen Schmidt that day I would have been a good dad to you, but before I went to prison I was just too ~~angry~~ ~~vengeful~~ ~~explosive~~ volatile._

_-Erik Magnus Lehnsherr._

_P.S. If we're going to keep this up, you're going to have to agree or the courts will have my ~~ass~~ butt_

_P.P.S Edie was my mother's name._


	3. Chapter 3

Charles was in the middle of a class when his phone went off. His usual policy on mobiles was, luckily, not too strict, so none of his students could accuse him of hyposcrisy, but still- it was embarrassing.

His tone had been Erik's idea. Obviously.

It was the theme from Jaws.

"Sorry, sorry," Charles chimed, trying to ignore the loud and oddly tinny  _BAAAAADA_  emanating from his dodgy old iPhone 3, and only took a second to glance at the caller's name before answering.

"Erik, I can't talk, I'm- Oh. Oh, well, that's wonderful, really. Thing is, I-"

He cut off, absently running his spare hand through his hair, eyes darting at nothing in particular, as Erik spoke.

"A photo, huh? That's very sweet... Are you ok? No, no, it's alright, I don't mind, it's just that I'm in the middle of a- It's probably a good thing that he doesn't have your smile, dear. What? No, I'm not saying anything. No, really, you have a lovely smile. Listen, could we have this conversation some other-"

Exchanging curious looks, his students edged forwards to try and listen. He glared at them.

"No, I haven't met anyone by that name. It's about as legal as everything else, Erik, I really wouldn't get hung up over them- No, I'll have a look when I get home. Right now I'm- Erik, will you please listen to me! I'm _in the middle of a class!_ Yes, yes, fine. I love you too."

With a sigh, Charles finally hung up and smiled at his students apologetically. He turned back to his lesson.

"Sorry, again. That was rather important. Right, any questions?"

The hand of the ginger stoner at the back shot right up.

"Yes, Sean?"

"What in the fuck was that conversation _about_ , man?!"

 

*

 

Erik sat on his couch and stared numbly at the three photos Peter had sent him. There was no letter with them, but he had scribbled all over the back of them and there were labels pointing to each person.

They were just... strange to see.

The first one was of Peter and another boy in some place with cliffs, so it couldn't be D.C. They must have been on a school trip or something. It was about a third of the way covered with the blurred bottom half of the other boy's face, all strands of long, reddish brown hair and a huge grin, and the neat little arrow that Peter had drawn (in blue biro) was labelled 'My friend, Remy LeBeau'. The other one was, a little unnecessarily, 'Me'.

Even if Erik hadn't seen his son for eleven years, it was obvious who he was. How many other teenagers had silver hair? It hung to about mid-neck length, and it had been swept back by the wind. It matched the silver leather jacket that he wore, knotted around his waist.

It was obvious that the other boy, Remy, had taken the photo, because Peter didn't seem to notice that he was in it. He was leaning over the rails on the edges of one of the cliffs, arms crossed and leaning on it, and a slight smile was tugging at the edges of his mouth as he stared into the distance. Whether he was tall or not, it didn't matter, because the photo left him looking like scarcely more than a little kid. The Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt he wore was far, far too big and was nearly at his knees.

The words written on the back of it were almost as potent as his son's original letter had been for Erik.

_Maybe I'm not supposed to do this but it can't be any worse than what we've already done, right? ~~Why does everything we write start with that~~_

_So, this is me and Remy. He's cool, and he tends to get all of the same detentions as me, so we're good. He knows quite a few people who are in prison, and he didn't see any reason why I shouldn't write, so it's kind of his fault I'm doing this. Thanks, Rem._

_Pretty much all I remember of this trip is the bus ride home, because Wanda's class were on it too and she kept throwing popcorn at me. I think I had an energy drink before, which isn't a good thing for me._

The second photo was of him and his sisters. He was in the middle, smiling smugly, arms around the both of them. They were glaring and grimacing at him respectively, and the elder of them appeared to be trying to put a hand up to block the photo from her face. She was labelled, unsurprisingly, as 'Wanda', and her hair was a soft chocolate colour, matching her eyes, held back with a red alice-band and streaked through with ruby. On top of that, she was wearing a red hoodie. The other little girl, who managed to look extraordinarily exasperated for a seven year old, seemed to have green hair. Erik tried not to think about what she was wearing, as it appeared to be a pink princess dress and he, naturally, did not think about such things. Her label said 'Lorna', and Peter had managed to write 'Me' again, as though it still wasn't obvious.

 _Me and my sisters,_ he wrote.

_Wanda's nice to people, usually, but only to their faces. To her family, as I'm sure you can see, she can be moody as ~~fuck~~ hell. She's a bit out of it too, sometimes. Mom used to think maybe she was on drugs, but she's not._

_All the red is kind of her thing. Her middle name's Scarlet, by the way, but Mom barely uses it and she didn't know about it until last year. She calls herself Scarlet ~~Bitch~~ Witch on tumblr and stuff. (PS Don't stalk my little sister, man. That is not cool)_

_Lorna's awesome! Wanda dyed her hair, so she tried to use the same thing on hers and turned it green by accident. And it won't wash out. She complained and cried at first, but now she kinda loves it. It makes her interesting, she says, but she was always interesting. She's a sweet kid. I would say the princess dress was a one-off, but she sort of wears it all the time. And if Mom's washing it, she wears pyjamas all day. Green pyjamas._

~~_I wear the Dark Side of the Moon thing pretty often. Not all the time, but I have three identical ones so_ ~~

~~_Basically my family is a cartoon._ ~~

The third was of a slightly younger Peter, maybe nine or ten. He was wearing what looked like a security guard's baseball cap, backwards, and grinning so widely that barely any of the rest of his face was visible. His t-shirt was green with white lightning bolts, and his shorts matched, and his sneakers were new and shiny, the laces trailing on the floor. His hair was almost as long as it was now.

He was surrounded by policemen.

Unfortunately, whoever had taken the photo had been aiming for Peter on his own, and had only captured them from the waist down, along with the bottom of their arms and someone who was bending over to talk to Peter's nose, so it was impossible to tell what they were doing. The labels just said 'Me' and 'Security personnel', so they were no help.

_When I was in fourth grade Mom took us to the Pentagon. Lorna was only four and Wanda was eight, so Mom took them to the restrooms and I got bored of waiting and wandered off. Long story short, I ended up in the kitchens and ~~fucked their shit up~~ bad things happened. I can't really remember precisely what I did, but it caused HAVOC on an EPIC SCALE. The best part is that something broke their cameras, so they don't even know what happened. Mom freaked out, of course, but most of the people working there were pretty cool about it. In fact, they seemed kind of impressed._

Erik smiled at that. At least his kid was a little troublemaker.

 

*

 

Erik was still looking at them when Charles came in from work.

He didn't speak, just held the one of him and his sisters up for his boyfriend to see, and let Charles grin and hurry over to look too. "Wow. He does sort of look like you, Erik."

"Uh huh."

Charles sat down and looked over them with him, half-smiling fondly. "Cute kids."

"I know. Say, Charles, have you heard of a 'LeBeau' before?"

Charles frowned thoughtfully. "Not that I can think of."

"I know I recognise the name. It's got to be something- fraud!" The word was a triumphant yell, and Charles jumped in amused surprise.

"Excuse me?"

"Fraud. The LeBeau family are famous for it- there was practically a LeBeau WING in prison."

Charles laughed. "Oh great. Your son has a taste for criminals. Are you sure it's the same family?"

"Of course it is. If you've got the same name as a criminal mob, you change it."

"Fair enough. Aren't you worried he's corrupting-" Erik scoffed. "Please, Charles, Peter broke into the Pentagon already. At the age of ten."

"Let me see."

There were a few minutes of silence as Charles looked over the photos.

"Jesus."

"I _know."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologise to everyone who's been waiting for more chapters. I will finish this if it kills me (which it might), but I have a pretty uncontrollable imagination and I'm doing other things and trying to finish off other WIPs.  
> There will be more chapters, there will be a plot!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating for so long! I promised I would...

Chapter 4.

By the time Peter actually arrived in class, after dropping Lorna off at her elementary school (he and Wanda took it in turns), Remy was already stood outside, being chewed out by a a teacher.  
"...I don't care what excuses you have," the man was growling. Uh oh. Mr Logan had a reputation as a bit of a psychopath. "What I care about is HOW YOU GOT INTO HER LOCKER IN THE FIRST PLACE."  
Despite the fact that Logan seemed to be about to rip his throat out, Remy just smiled.  
"She left it open, Monsieur, I swear. I was just gon' to return 'em to her, an' then she starts cryin' and all- Oh, hi, Peter."  
Mr Logan spared the other boy barely a glance before leaning even closer to Remy. "Listen to me, you cocky little brat. I know as well as you do that that's not what happened, but I'm going to let it slide just this once. If it happens again, however, I will _eat your liver_. Do you understand?"  
Even Remy LeBeau was a little intimidated by that, because it was clear that Mr Logan was very capable of carrying out his threat, and he nodded frantically.  
"Good. Get into class."  
"Yessir."  
They both watched him go, Remy waiting until he had rounded the corner - snarling at a tardy eleven year old - before letting out a breath.  
"Mon Dieu, that man is insane. I had Ororo's contact lenses in my desk, that was all."  
"I read the letter." said Peter frankly, and Remy took on the same expression as him, vibrating with excitement.  
"What'd he say?"  
He took off his backpack - blue with silver lightning stripes, thank you for that, it's not embarrassing at all, mom - and extracted the letter from where he had hidden it in his gym shoe.  
"You can read it if you want."  
Remy nodded and reached for it, then hesitated, glancing up at Peter with his strange eyes. "You sure? Dis is your private business here."  
"I've read yours."  
"True, but I get lots."  
Logan appeared again at the end of the corridor and the two boys glanced nervously at each other.  
"Read it at lunch?" murmured Peter, and Remy nodded.  
"Oui, dat seems safest. Winding Logan up is great, but not twice in one mornin'. I got no particular desire to get my liver eaten."

Remy looked up at him with wide eyes and whistled. "Jee-zus."  
Peter nodded, ignoring his mom's dodgy meat paste sandwiches and Remy's energy drinks to just stare at the offending piece of paper.  
"What're you gonna do?" whispered Remy. "I know he got let out, and I got family dat..." He tailed off and made a shooting gesture with his hands. "But he's like, a murderer-"  
"Manslaughter." cut Peter.  
"Still. Attempted murder."  
"And assault."  
" _Exactlement_."  
Peter cocked his head thoughtfully to one side, and stared at it, thinking about telling Remy that he'd already sent the photos back, only for a shout to cut suddenly through his thoughts.  
"Hey, freaks," it laughed, full of derision and anger, and Remy and Peter exchanged a nervous but resigned glance before Peter scooped the letter back into his pocket and Remy leaned back from the table.  
Neither of them looked up.  
"I'm talking to you two." growled the voice, and they reluctantly did.  
It was Victor Creed, a huge, bulky kid with, quite frankly, terrifying muscles and blonde hair in ragged dreadlocks. His fingernails were yellow and clawed and long and tapped menacingly on the two boy's table.  
"Really?" asked Peter, already worn out with Victor's crap, despite the fact that he'd been there barely a moment. "I didn't hear my name anywhere," he continued, words getting faster and blurring together, as they did when he was agitated. "Did you hear yours, Remy?"  
"Non. Dunno about you, Victor, I don' know any people called dat."  
Remy's accent was far, far stronger than usual, and it made Peter's hackles rise that Victor could get a reaction out of them so quickly.  
"Well, I've been calling you freaks freaks for a long time, freaks."  
That was certainly true. Victor was, as you may have guessed, a little low on creativity.  
"Hey, be nice," came the voice of John Wraith, a friend of Victor's and a kid distinguishable only by the fact that he wore a cowboy hat for no apparent reason and could move scarily quietly. He liked to appear behind people on purpose, to scare them. "Or at least, be your approximation of nice."  
Victor snarled - actually literally snarled - and shot a warning glance over his shoulder at John, who put his hands up in surrender and sent some vague sympathy Remy and Peter's way.  
"Just saying, if you beat them up, I ain't covering for you."  
Remy's hands balled into fists and Peter felt himself become even twitchier, as their fight or flight instincts kicked in.  
"Principle Stryker hasn't got much of a problem with it," sneered Victor, and turned back to the pair of them.  
"Can't risk getting adults involved," murmured Peter, to Remy, as the hairy older boy sized them both up. "If I'm caught with the letter, I'm dead."  
Remy forced himself to uncurl his fists, then looked placatingly up at Victor, palms pressed against the table, and spoke through gritted teeth, with carefully clear words.  
"We don't want no troubl-"  
Victor's right hook caught Remy around the jaw like a freight train, before he could even finish the word, knocking him flying sideways.  
So, naturally, Peter leapt at him and tackled him to the floor, and before anyone had time to blink he was pinned underneath the older boy with everyone in the cafeteria cheering on one side or the other; John Wraith, the principal's son, Jason, and the Fat Kid (Fred Dukes) tugging on Victor, and Remy and Wanda trying to drag Peter out from under him, while both boys struggled furiously and yelled and tried to keep punching.

Peter sat outside the principal's office and held onto his wrist to try and stop his knuckles from hurting, and sighed. Victor was inside, being 'chewed out' by Mr. Stryker. In theory, anyway. In reality, they were probably having a good chuckle at Peter's expense and a cup of coffee. Everyone knew about Stryker and his favouritism.  
The door slammed open, making Peter jump, and Victor strode triumphantly out, aiming a kick at Peter as he did.  
"Your turn, freak," he snarled, and Peter got laboriously to his feet, ignoring the twang in his ankle. He also had a killer black eye. "Apparently, you're a disruptive influence. He's gonna have to have a little chat with your mommy."  
Peter's eyes widened and he paled suddenly, sending an alarmed stare at Victor's rapidly repeating back. He hadn't been joking when he told Erik that he only reason he hadn't been kicked out was athletics, and there hadn't been any contests recently that could put him in the principal's good books.  
"Maximoff!" barked Stryker's voice, and Peter swallowed and nervously limped in. Sure enough, there was a pair of empty coffee mugs on the desk from his meeting with Victor.  
"Your behaviour," began the man, in a sharp tone that made Peter wince. "Is completely- Oh, for god's sake, boy, close the door!"  
With the look of someone who was about to be violently murdered, he did.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5.

His ears still ringing from the multilingual yelling at he had received in the car - Lorna and Wanda had both been allowed to put their hands over their ears: he had not - Pietro darted into his house, opened the fridge, grabbed whatever he could find - a half finished tub of Ben and Jerrys, two lucozades and a packet of tortilla chips - and ran upstairs to the sound of the angry 'And you're grounded!' from his mom.  
"Yes, mama!" he shouted over his shoulder, shoving the food into his bag and pushing the window open with his shoulder.  
"Don't you 'yes, mama' me! I mean it- sneak out and I'll shoot you in the foot!"  
Peter, whose leg was already hooked over the sill, froze. He didn't doubt for a moment that she would shoot him; really, it was amazing that this woman had been deemed more responsible than Erik, however many people Erik had killed. There was a shiny grey pistol locked in his mother's jewellery box, with which she could, if necessary, take out an individual bead of sweat on a man's forehead without touching his skin. From two hundred feet.  
He sighed, resigned, and climbed back inside, scowling at his reflection as he wandered past a mirror - that was one hell of a black eye, he thought, but, like, not the good kind - to pick up his phone and dial Remy.  
"Hey, silver!" greeted the other boy cheerfully. "Still alive on dat end, homme?"  
"No." replied Peter stubbornly."I'm dead. Totally dead. Creed and Stryker and Mom all killed me with blunt instruments."  
"Jeez, I'm sure it ain't dat bad."  
"Yeah, well, close."  
"Any real trouble?"  
"I'm probably gonna be grounded until forever, but not really." He sent a vicious kick at the end of his bed in frustration. "Everyone knows Victor started it anyway!"  
"Oui, but dere's nothin' we can do, so I reckon we should-"  
"Yeah, you would be chilled about it." continued Peter in mock-bitterness. "I mean, I just get a few ruptured organs from Mr. Psycho Creed, and you just get to watch, but, nah, let's talk about something else Remy, that's cool-"  
"Aw, come on! Y'know I got a sucker punch to de face. Anyways, I reckon we should write another letter, since he actually replied to de last one-"  
Peter coughed guiltily. He hadn't had a chance to tell Remy about the photos he had sent yet.  
A shy knock on the door interrupted him before he could reply, and he smiled. "Just a sec, Rems, sister."  
He jumped up and pulled the door open smoothly, grinning down at the tiny, green-haired little girl standing there. "Hey, munchkin."  
"Hiya!"  
She beamed at him for a moment, while he waited for further explanation of what she wanted, and eventually just sighed and asked.  
"Um, Lorna, were you gonna say something or...?"  
"Oh! Someone sent you a letter, Petey."  
His eyebrows shot up. "Really? Does it say who from?"  
"Not on the front..."  
"Ok, thanks, bye now, have fun, go play princess with Wanda-"  
Peter hurried back inside, accidentally slamming the door in his sister's face, and stared at the address, inwardly confirming that it was, in fact, Erik.  
"Hey," Remy's voice was calling from the phone, tinny and irritated. "Pietro, ami, you still dere?"  
"I got another one." he replied, somewhat randomly, and felt Remy mentally roll his eyes.  
"Are you tryin' out for a black belt in cryptic phone calls or somet'in? You sayin' you pulled another girl or you got another Twinkie or a letter from yo' pere or what?"  
"Letter, I got another letter."  
"Huh? How'd he manage dat?"  
"I sent him some photos." said Peter dismissively, and received a loud BANG in return, which guessed was Remy slamming his head against a wall.  
"See, dis is the kinda shit dat gets people locked up for child pornography."  
"It's not porn! Just me and Lorna and Wanda. One with your face on the edge. That time at the Pentagon."  
"Oh, oui. 'The Incident With The FBI'."  
"Yeah."  
"So, what's in de letter?"  
"Hold on, I'll open it." He sat down on his desk chair and started ripping the envelope, shaking his head in amazement. "Man, that was close. Lorna picked it up; Mom could have read it."  
Feeling something moving around, Peter frowned, and tipped the letter upside down, three things falling out.  
"Photos!"  
"I'm coming 'round!"  
"No, you can't, I'm grounded."  
"Fuck. Y'know, if I'd gotten into a fight-"  
"You'd probably get one disproving look from your dad, and then there'd be a hit against Victor, I know."  
Remy laughed. "Not quite my words, homme, but whatever you want to think. Talk later?"  
"Yeah, ok."  
He hung up and went to stare at the first glance at his dad he had had since the man was released from prison.

The first one was of Erik, on his own, staring into the camera with the kind of angrily blank gaze that would denote that he was a sarcastic asshole. He was wearing a black turtleneck and a brown leather jacket, and his hands were in his pockets of his pale brown pants. His greyish eyes were completely unlike Peter's, but the jaw was the same and the lines around it reminded him so sharply of his own reflection that he had to sit down. No silver hair, obviously. That was unique.

 _This is the photo on my passport and ID for work_ , Erik had written on the back. _I'm sorry for looking so angry. My boss was trying to cheer me up, and I was determined to resist. As you can probably see, happy is not my default setting with the general public._

_That's really all I have to say._

For a moment Peter hesitated, and then he laughed. If there was any way on earth he didn't think Wanda would find it, he would totally have started a twitter called 'Shit My Depraved Misanthropic Long Lost Dad Says'.

The next one was of Erik with his arm wrapped amicably around a young man his own age, who was neatly labelled 'Charles'. Charles seemed a little surprised, staring right at the camera with raised eyebrows and what looked like a shaky laugh, while Erik was just grinning (very toothily) and glancing towards his boyfriend. Charles himself had very intensely blue eyes, although Peter thought that it might be a trick of the light, and longish, soft brown hair. Like Erik, he was young, but there were already crinkles of laughter lines around his eyes.

He looked kind, happy, thought Peter wistfully.

 _Me and Charles have been together for a year_ , explained Erik. _He's sweet and lovely and ridiculous and wonderful._

Cute, thought Peter.

_He's incredibly dedicated to teaching, and inspiring people, which is probably why he bothers to hang around with high school students at all. All too often, I find my apartment full of teenagers attempting to understand Charles's immensely complicated thesis. Luckily, I seem to scare them._

Bet I wouldn't be scared, thought Peter with a half-smile. Once you've faced off Stryker and Logan, teachers are the least of your worries.

 _Of course, I would be making no attempt to scare you. Too much_. continued Erik, echoing Peter's thoughts. _I'm unashamed to say that Charles read your letter first; I hope you don't mind. Since I haven't really met you yet, I also hope that you don't think it's rude of me to say that Charles is the best thing in my life._

It was signed _'Your father. Obviously_.' in the same rigidly neat, black biro, but next to that was a shy and almost illegible _**'Also Charles :)**_ ' in blue pen.

The third one hit Peter like one of Victor's blows - that was, shockingly hard and almost definitely below the belt - and he felt all the air leave his lungs, reeling backwards. It was Erik, a look of wonder and awe and joy and almost panic on his face, perched on a hospital bed somewhere, with a new born baby cradled in the crook of his elbow, tiny little bootied feet resting at his wrist.

The baby's hair was white. Peter didn't really need to look, but he did anyway, and those three damning, wonderful letters were above the baby's head: ' _You_ '.

Erik's writing was smaller when he wrote on the back this time.

_Ok, long story. On the day you were born, I was working in a warehouse. Interesting, I know. You were a very early baby, so we had no warning, your mother had managed to break her only phone, and I didn't have a mobile. She went into labour at home and called an ambulance, and (apparently) spent half of the way lying on her back, kicking and screaming like only a heavily pregnant woman can, and yelling in various languages that if someone didn't call me, she wasn't having a baby. So, I was stacking shelves, bored out of my mind, and suddenly a paramedic bursts in asking for 'Erik verdammt Magnus Lehnsherr', and drags me off to where my wife is attempting not to go into labour by force of sheer stubbornness. Unfortunately, the silly ~~twat~~ man hadn't thought that he would have to transport me to the hospital too, and I had to perch on the back of the bicycle he had arrived in. It was worth it, though, to meet you. You were tiny!_

_I don't remember you being a particularly loud baby, but you were restless. You walked very early, and would cry if we tried to make you nap for longer than the absolute least possible amount of time_.

It was like looking in on a snapshot of someone else's life. It didn't seem like reality- or at least, not Peter's reality. Peter's reality was a missing dad they didn't talk about, a deadly, irresponsible mom, altogether too many sisters, and the irrepressible Remy LeBeau. Sometimes it was necessary to worry about Wanda's mental state, or Lorna's seven year old social angst, or Victor and his gang, or Stryker kicking them out. His life did not, COULD not, include a gay, far away but very-much-there dad, a mother who was, accidentally, coming close to comic genius, an intriguing... Whatever Charles was to him, and a Remy that actually influenced positive life decisions. He had never even seen a baby photo of himself before.

And then he picked up the fourth and final photo, and realised why he had never really seen a photo of his mother as a kid either.

It was black and white, strangely appropriate, and clearly taken some time in the eighties or very early nineties. Erik was dressed in a plain white polo shirt, maybe ten years old, and black trousers. Next to him was a girl in pretty much the same clothes, with a black cardigan, curly, streaky hair and a pretty smile. He was glancing towards her, ignoring the hands of some adult on his shoulder. Erik was practically scrawny, a mop of untidy, short hair on his head, while the little girl was just kind of short. She was labelled 'Magda'.

 _This was your mother and I's first school dance_. said Erik's description. _A year after my mother's death. The man behind me is my uncle Django, who died last year. Don't feel sorry, ~~he continued in the same manner as he did when he was my guardian and drunk himself to death~~ ~~he had a bit of an alcohol problem~~ he wasn't a very good man. This was still at the point when Magda spoke very bad English, you understand, so her parents had kind of set us up to go together._

_We went to every dance together, from middle school through to the end of college, so presumably her parents got their wish. I understand they don't talk to her now, ~~which I can't imagine bothers them too much. Fuck them, anyway. **Erik, you can't write that on here.**~~_

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's short, I know, just thought y'all deserved an update.

Erik was standing on the edge of his construction site, eyes narrowed, arms crossed and expression bored and pensive.  
"Um, boss?" came the timid voice of his intern, Angel, from behind him. She was one of Charles's students, with a bit of a criminal record and who had been informed by her teachers, several times, that she was likely to end up a stripper if she didn't get a job, so Erik had been obliged to take her on.  
He terrified her.  
"What?" he snapped irritably. "I'm busy."  
Technically, he wasn't, but Angel didn't know that, and terrorising her was fun.  
"M-Moira said to give you this!" she yelped, handing him a letter and running for her life.  
Erik's countenance brightened. There was no address on it, obviously, since the kid had absolutely zero talent for subterfuge or subtlety, but it had to be Peter. Who else would send him a letter?  
There was a yellow sticky note on the front - ' _Just forwarding this to you, darling! Charles_ :)' - and it had already been opened, which he obviously didn't mind.

 _Hey, Dad!_ Peter had written. _Man, those photos were cool. Weird to see myself as a baby, though. (I've hidden them in my underwear drawer, cos my sisters and Mom are NEVER going to look there- same with the other letter)._  
 _Charles looks cool, by the way! You two are cute. I can feel the gay love, like, from here._  
 _And, about the secrecy, the only other person who's read your letter is Remy (in the photo, remember?)._  
 _He hasn't seen the photos yet, because I'm grounded.  
And I'm grounded because I got into a fight.  
And if I get into another one I'm being expelled._  
 _ ~~Uh, yeah.~~  
There's this kid who likes to pick on me and Remy, but it's not like we're useless or anything, he's smart and I'm fast, it's just that Victor is, like, really huge and scary ~~and nevermind~~_  
 _Just wanted to say, here's my email address. It'd make it easier, but I get if you prefer the letters._

_Quicksilverkid@Mutantmail.com_

  
_In other news, I only got arrested once this week, so that's good._   
_-Peter._

Erik put the letter away from his eyes, and ran his hand anxiously through his hair. The signs of a teenager in trouble are all very obvious, to those who know how to look for them. What was going on with Peter?

He got his phone out, ignoring Moira's disapproving tut somewhere in the background, and sent eight words to Charles.

_\--He needs help. We have to help him.--_

Thirty seconds later, his boyfriend replied.

_\--I know. We will.--_


End file.
